simply sew: empire-waist dresses

There has been a lot of exciting things happening on the WSC side of my life but a lot of exciting things in the non-WSC part of my life. I thought I’d share those with you today

I bought a sewing machine this past fall and although I’m not a beginner sewer, I’m not one to make clothing. It just terrifies me. I made some pants when I took some sewing lessons the summer before I started junior high and the instructions drove me a little nuts. They might as well have been written in a foreign language.

That being said, I wanted to try making a dress or skirt. I have a heck of a time finding either of those items in shops that I actually want to buy. They either don’t fit the way I want them to or are made of polyester/silk/etc material that makes my skin crawl. So I went on Pinterest and found some DIY dress posts. I decided to try this tutorial by A Small Snippet.

(I did not make the black or red sweaters or the leggings fyi hehe They just paired perfectly and it was too cold to just wear the tank top of the dresses.)

It worked out and it didn’t. When cutting the top, I didn’t take into account that the front would be stretched out and the back ended up being longer, so I had to re-sew that part. I also had a hell of a time using elastic thread for the first dress but it was easier for the second dress.

I found that the material requirements were actually too big. Even with the elastic thread, I still had to take the skirt portion in several inches; I ended up wrapping it around my waist about 1-1.2-ish times rather than 1.5.

None of my lines, other than the hem line, are straight; I had a hard time with that let alone with elastic thread that was bunching the fabric as I sewed but thankfully a belt hides that!

I’m glad I was able to tackle elastic thread but man, I did not enjoy working with it.

My next clothing project are PJ bottoms with this cute heart fabric and polka dot fabric I have!—

I’m not one for self-portraits and due to the rain, I only had a small opening which meant finding a backdrop in my yard. Maybe I’ll take some more photos of my dresses another time

Kyle decided to have some fun with my camera set-up while I was switching outfits for the dress shots and the camera shots. I thought I’d share those with you since I find them pretty entertaining.